Poll of the Day > When I'm doing sets do I gradually increase weight? Or just lift the heaviest?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like I normally do 3 sets of say barbell chest presses. I do 15 light weights, 8 medium, and 5 heavy weight.

But my friend's talking about you need to find the heaviest you can lift with good form and just do that for every single set, same amount of reps. So rather than 15x30kg, 8x35kg, 5x40kg I need to be doing say 10x37.5kg, 10x37.5kg, 10x37.5kg.

Is that right?
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Find the weight you fail at, lift lower than that. You want to push yourself but not completely kill your muscles. Lifting to fail every time is just going to result in injury and too much recovery time.
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FatalAccident posted...

But my friend's talking about you need to find the heaviest you can lift with good form and just do that for every single set, same amount of reps. So rather than 15x30kg, 8x35kg, 5x40kg I need to be doing say 10x37.5kg, 10x37.5kg, 10x37.5kg.

you should reduce it slightly each time (10x37.5kg, 10x32.5kg, 10x27.5kg...). whatever enables you to do 10 reps on the next set, even if you're now at half of what you started with. you shouldn't be struggling to do the 10 either. don't bend and twist to try to complete the set, if you can't complete it with proper form then that's how far you got and you needed a lower weight.
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I find if I jump to my highest weight right away that I'd literally kill myself. I can squat 520 pounds though, so I start with sets with one pair of 45s, then two, three, etc. I'll probably warm up for 20 minutes doing that, then I'll do three sets of five at my max. I then go back down with the number of pairs of plates (4, 3, 2, 1).

It's good to get strong at all weight/rep combinations. Going back and doing less than your max will build a stronger foundation for when you go back to the max weight.
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Yes, that's pretty normal.

Another style/technique is something like doing reps until failure, lower weight by 2.5-5 lbs, and repeat. It's really exhausting, and your body will tell you that the next morning.
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i like the pyramid method for muscle building. an easy one is 25, 50, 75, 100, 75, 50, 25 percent your ten rep max. so if your 10 rep max for bench is 200lbs you would start off with 10 reps at 50lbs, then 10 reps at 100, etc., till you hit your max and then work your way back down